A silicon carbide sintered body has a high hardness and a high corrosion resistance, has a small friction coefficient at the time of sliding, and is excellent in smoothness, so that it is preferably used in a sliding component.
For example, Patent Document 1 proposes a silicon carbide sintered body made of a silicon carbide crystal phase of at least one kind of α-phase and β-phase and a YAG crystal phase, the rest of which is made of unavoidable impurities. Patent Document 1 discloses a silicon carbide sintered body in which a rate of the YAG crystal phase is 0.2 to 20 wt %, and the average crystal grain size of silicon carbide in the sintered body is 3 μm or less and the average crystal grain size of the YAG crystal is 1 μm or less as a preferable example.